Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Churches & monasteries
Siemiatycze
On a rise above the Muchawiec stream, behind a stone wall with an ornate gate, stands a church with seven domes. This is the oldest Orthodox parish in Siemiatycze, dating back to the 15th century, while the present brick church was built i…
Churches & monasteries
Puchły
The Orthodox Church of the Protection of the Mother of God in Puchły (say "POOH-hwih") is one of the most photogenic wooden churches in Poland. Painted a vivid blue and topped with a cluster of onion domes, it stands in a tiny village in t…
Churches & monasteries
Trześcianka
The green wooden Orthodox church of St Michael the Archangel, with a bulbous dome above the entrance and an onion-domed turret over the nave, is the best-known building in Trześcianka, one of the three villages on the Land of Open Shutters…
Churches & monasteries
Juchnowiec Kościelny
The small Orthodox Chapel of St Michael the Archangel in Wojszki has a surprising pedigree: it was funded in 1865 by the Governor-General of Vilnius, Mikhail Muravyov, nicknamed "the Hangman" for his brutal repression after the January Upr…
Churches & monasteries
Kleszczele
This white Orthodox church with blue onion domes in the centre of Kleszczele stands on the site of a former Catholic church and was partly built from its timber. The Church of the Dormition of the Mother of God was consecrated in 1877, and…
Churches & monasteries
Siemiatycze
On Zaszkolna Street in Siemiatycze stands a massive white building with a tall hipped roof — the former synagogue that Princess Anna Jabłonowska funded for the town's Jews as compensation for the cemetery they lost when the town was rebuil…
Churches & monasteries
Narew
Every year on 2 August, the feast of the Prophet Elijah, Orthodox priests walk around the whole village with the residents, blessing farmyards and houses with holy water – a procession that was banned under communism. At the heart of this…
Churches & monasteries
Białystok
Białystok Cathedral (pronounced "bee-AH-wih-stok"), formally the Archcathedral Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is the main Catholic church of northeastern Poland and the most recognizable building in Białystok. Local…
Churches & monasteries
Łomża
Łomża Cathedral is a textbook example of Masovian Gothic – with a few surprises. The side aisles hide crystal vaults, rare in this part of Poland; the aisles hold Renaissance tombs from the workshop of Santi Gucci; and set into the wall of…
Churches & monasteries
Wigry
Wigry Monastery is a former Camaldolese hermitage on a peninsula in Lake Wigry, a short drive from Suwałki in northeastern Poland. Its white late-Baroque church towers, row of little hermit houses and lakeside setting make it the best-know…
Churches & monasteries
Sokółka
The Collegiate Church of St. Anthony in Sokółka (so-KOOL-ka), also known as the Shrine of the Eucharistic Miracle, is a neoclassical church with two towers and a gate-style bell tower. Pilgrims have come here from all over Poland since 200…
Churches & monasteries
Bielsk Podlaski
Two white towers with Baroque cupolas on ulica Mickiewicza are one of the most distinctive sights in Bielsk Podlaski. Few churches in Poland have changed roles so often: it has been a Carmelite church, a tsarist Orthodox cathedral, a Germa…
Churches & monasteries
Goniądz
The white church with its tall tower in the centre of Goniądz is the latest of the churches that have stood here since the Middle Ages and a reminder of the turbulent history of this small town on the Biebrza river. It was built in 1922–19…
Churches & monasteries
Krynki
The two slender towers of St Anne's Church can be seen from afar above Krynki, a small town near the Belarusian border. The brick neo-Gothic church was built in 1907–1912, but the parish has five centuries of history behind it – it goes ba…
Churches & monasteries
Zabłudów
The white Neoclassical church in Zabłudów, with its two towers and columned portico, took 35 years to build, from 1805 to 1840. It exists because the Prussian authorities had its predecessor pulled down in 1800, leaving Catholics to worshi…
Churches & monasteries
Jedwabne
Two white towers with dark cupolas rise above the flat country between Łomża and the Biebrza river and mark the centre of Jedwabne. St James the Apostle Church was built in 1926–1935, as the small town was recovering from the ruins of the…
Churches & monasteries
Tykocin
Two towers joined to the nave by semicircular arcades, pale yellow render and a red roof: this is the skyline anyone who has seen Tykocin from the Narew river will recognise. The late Baroque Holy Trinity Church closes the eastern side of…
Churches & monasteries
Drohiczyn
The white Baroque church on Plac Kościuszki in Drohiczyn is the fifth Franciscan church to stand on this spot. Its predecessors were lost to fire and war, but this one survived the partitions, the conversion of its friary into a prison and…
Museums
Hajnówka
Hajnówka is one of the centres of Poland's Belarusian minority, and its museum came into being in an unusual way: inside a former sawmill hall, built by local people with money collected among Belarusians on several continents. Constructio…
Museums
Supraśl
The Museum of Icons in Supraśl, a branch of the Podlasie Museum in Białystok, occupies the former Archimandrites' Palace within an Orthodox monastery with more than five centuries of history. The permanent exhibition "The Icon. Image and W…
Technical monuments
Hajnówka
In Hajnówka, on the edge of the Białowieża Forest, you can do more than look at an old smithy – you can swing a hammer at red-hot iron yourself. The private Museum of Blacksmithing and Locksmithing at ul. Lipowa 1 is run by Stanisław Mierz…
Museums
Suwałki
The Suwałki District Museum (Muzeum Okręgowe w Suwałkach; say "soo-VOW-kee") is the main museum of the Suwałki region in far northeastern Poland, housed in a handsome early-20th-century building in the town center. It holds Poland's larges…
Museums
Białystok
The Sybir Memorial Museum in Białystok (pronounced "bee-AH-wih-stok") is one of Poland's most powerful modern history museums. It tells the story of Poles and other citizens of the old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth who were exiled, impris…
Museums
Drozdowo
In this manor house above the Narew river, nine-year-old Witold Lutosławski wrote his first piano piece, and Roman Dmowski, one of the founders of modern Poland, spent the last months of his life and died on 2 January 1939. Today the forme…